today: mexico tomorrow

Tomorrow morning kicks off another trip to Vamos Tamaulipas, the colonia just outside of Reynosa, Mexico (south of McAllen) my church has been involved with for the past few years. This team will focus on ministering to women and children. We go for a number of reasons.

We go because we believe that people are valuable, and the best way to tell them that is by getting involved in their lives. This is a low-income community. Some things are hard about being there. And many things, particularly the people-related things, are beautiful. We wouldn’t know that if we didn’t go.

We go because we believe that Jesus loves. Period. And the best way to love, period, is again, by getting involved in the lives of others. Jesus spent a lot of time with the marginalized and oppressed, validating them in the way he reached into their lives, loving, healing, administering grace and creating a better story.

We go because in going we come to understand Jesus more. We come to understand each other more. We come to understand our friends in the colonia more. We learn their names, their faces, their stories. And in so doing, we have great hope for them. Arlene. Ruby. Osiris. Dana. Dayan. Raymundo. Mundy. Oscar. Ofelia. Monserrat. Juan. Norma. Hector. Karely… the list goes on and on…

And we go because we want to teach the children at our church that they can change the world, that the way Jesus lived is viable and valuable and the best possible way to live. We can think of no better way to do that than by taking them and letting them work out what that looks like hands on.

A lot of this year has included more questions than answers when it comes to my faith. And yet every time we go, the simple thing that comes out is this: there is something compelling about this life, this way. It is worth it. He is worth it. They are worth it. So we go.